Wikipedia today lost a legal battle against the UK's tech secretary to tighten the criteria around the Online Safety Act 2023 (OSA), as it seeks to exclude itself from the strictest regulations.
The Wikimedia Foundation argued that the criteria for Category 1 services, as defined by the OSA, were too broad and would see its online encyclopedia unfairly grouped together with social media and porn giants.
The ruling does not indicate that either tech sec Peter Kyle or Ofcom , the regulator responsible for the UK's OSA , were wrong to define the service categories in the way they did, or to introduce the Act in the first place.
However, Mr Justice Johnson said that his ruling [PDF] should not be confused as a "green light" for Ofcom and Kyle to "implement a regime that would significantly